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BEIRUT — Syrian rebels seized control of a strategic hospital near Aleppo, giving a boost to
beleaguered anti-government forces in the northern city after days of relentless airstrikes on
opposition-held neighborhoods there, activists said yesterday.

The rebels’ capture of Kindi hospital does not drastically alter the broader battle for Aleppo,
which has been divided for more than a year between opposition and government forces. But it does
provide a lift to a rebel movement that has been dogged in recent months by infighting that allowed
President Bashar Assad’s forces to chip away at rebel-held territory on several fronts.

For months, rebels had been trying to capture Kindi hospital, which is close to the besieged
central prison on the edge of town and where the government is thought to be holding thousands of
detainees.

The hospital finally fell to the rebels on Friday, said two activist groups — the Aleppo Media
Center and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Aleppo-based activist Abu al-Hassan Marea said the rebels who overran the hospital included both
conservative Muslim groups and al-Qaida-linked factions.

Observatory director Rami Abdurrahman said at least 42 government troops were killed in Friday’s
fighting, and at least 19 Syrian rebels and an unknown number of foreign fighters.

A Syrian freelance photographer who worked for foreign news outlets also was killed in the
fighting, activists said.

Meanwhile, Syrian government forces continued dumping “barrel bombs” — containers containing
hundreds of pounds of explosives and fuel — over opposition-held parts of Aleppo. The British-based
Observatory said at least six people were killed in air raids yesterday, but other groups gave
higher death tolls.

The aid group Doctors Without Borders has said that, over four days last week, government
airstrikes killed at least 189 people and wounded 879 more.

Human Rights Watch, meanwhile, said in a statement yesterday that the airstrikes in Aleppo were
indiscriminate and unlawful.

“Government forces have really been wreaking disaster on Aleppo in the last month, killing men,
women and children alike,” said Ole Solvang, senior emergencies researcher for the New York-based
group. “The Syrian Air Force is either criminally incompetent, doesn’t care whether it kills scores
of civilians — or deliberately targets civilian areas.”

Syria’s civil war, now in its third year, has killed more than 120,000 people, activists say,
while millions have been forced from their homes by the fighting.

Syrian officials have not commented on the air raids in Aleppo, the country’s largest city and
former commercial hub. Aleppo has been a major front in the civil war since the rebels launched an
offensive there in mid-2012. The city has been carved into opposition- and government-held
areas.

The escalation comes ahead of peace talks scheduled to begin on Jan. 22 in Switzerland. The
timing has sparked speculation that Assad might be trying to strengthen his position on the ground
and expose opposition weaknesses before sitting down at the negotiating table.